POTUS
He talked, and talked, and talked.
No one understood what he said.
Yet they all bowed down to his fraudulence,
Rather than lose their head.
Thing is, he had no ax,
No broadsword he could swing.
The best device was theirs, not his,
And that was the guillotine.
They could put his head on a pole,
In defiance of his flagrant hate.
Instead they cowered in their microchips,
As if to accept their fate.
He kept the masses occupied
Fed them bits of bread.
Distracted them with empty promises
And robbed them as they bled.
They were desperate for a hero,
To materialize from their screen.
But generated heroes are only heroic,
In graphically designed dreams.
He talked, and talked, and talked.
No one understood what he said.
They bowed down to his fraudulence,
Rather than loose their head.
Their guillotine laid draped in cobwebs
As the emperor strutted without clothes.
He lied, and lied, and lied,
As democracy decomposed.
Fool’s Gold
Oh, how I loved you then.
In the days of fool’s gold.
My body yearned to touch yours.
My palate hungered to taste yours.
My eyes were blinded by yours.
My soul lusted to mate with yours.
Oh, how I loved you then,
In the days of fool’s gold.
I mined my inner sanctum then,
In the days of fool’s gold.
Searching for a rational value of love.
Chipping into the fateful core of love.
Digging ever deeper into the quarry of love.
Weighing the extracted, raw ore of love.
Oh, how I loved you then,
In the days of fool’s gold.
No, I was not grounded then,
In the days of fool’s gold.
I thought that true love was perpetual motion.
I imagined that true love was consensual devotion.
I believed that true love could never be broken.
I was startled to uncover true love caving to erosion.
Oh, how I loved you then,
In the days of fool’s gold.
Oh, how I loved you then.
In the days of fool’s gold.
My body yearned to touch yours.
My palate hungered to taste yours.
My eyes were blinded by yours.
My soul lusted to mate with yours.
Oh, how I loved you then,
In the days of fool’s gold.
Love Light
The moon shines on the sea at night.
A bright, but borrowed light.
You and I sit on the shore,
And watch as light reflections
Twinkle on the waves.
Borrowed light.
Reflected light.
It is the love light
In your eyes that stays
With me long after night.
All day.
It is your love that lights my way.
When We Cross the River
When we cross the river
It will be different there.
We will not be the same.
When we cross the river
There will be redemption there
We will shed our soul of shame.
Across the river there
Stands a beacon bright
That guides us to the light.
A carpenter built it there
Upon a cornerstone
To pilot souls home.
Across the river there
Stands a dogwood cross,
An icon for the lost.
The Ascension left it there
To manifest the way,
That we be not led astray.
When we cross the river
There is no turning back,
The helmsman is wearing black.
When we cross the river
We no longer need to fear,
Redemption awaits us there.
Dancing Fools
We danced on the table.
We danced on the floor.
We danced in the hallway.
We danced out the door.
We danced in the street.
We danced in the clouds.
We danced quite alone.
We danced in the crowds.
We danced in the mountains.
We danced on the shore.
We danced until exhausted,
Then we danced some more.
We danced in the moonlight.
We danced all day long.
We danced to the silence.
We danced to our song.
We’re just dancing fools,
I suppose you might say.
But, hey,
We’ll just keep on dancing,
Until we’ve danced away.
What Happened to Christmas
What happened to Christmas.
Where did it go.
The Mass of Christ is fading.
Candles are burning low.
It’s silent in the steeples.
Manger doors are closed.
Wise men wax weary,
Following starlight’s waning glow.
Dollar signs replace Angels.
Christmas has been sold.
What happened to St. Nicholas.
Why is Santa sad.
The holidays have been hijacked
By all we want,
Not what we have.
We’re blinded by the bling.
Christmas lights flash ads.
Dollar signs are ornaments.
Christmas has been sold.
What happened to Christmas.
Where has it gone.
No Carols on street corners.
No Noel in the songs.
Holiday cards are cyber.
Inflated Nativity on the lawn.
Purchases Googled early.
Store sales all night long.
Dollar signs blight the Advent.
Christmas has been sold.
What happened to Christmas.
Where did it go.
The Mass of Christ is fading.
Candles are burning low.
It’s silent in the steeples.
Manger doors are closed.
Wise men wax weary,
Following starlight’s waning glow.
Dollar signs replace Angels.
Christmas has been sold.
Lonely Town
I arrived at Lonely Town
with a photograph in my hand.
It’s not really a town, rather a state of mind
That permeates a man.
It’s a loneliness that aches in the heart.
Crowded streets where you meet
People much too busy from the very start.
Lives are for sale.
Lives of every imaginable kind.
Electronics vacuum the brain through
The ears and the eyes.
In Lonely Town no one is surprised.
No one sees the sky.
There are faces in the clouds that cry
And nobody wonders why.
I checked into the Hotel Lark,
Just across the avenue from the park
Where faceless folks walk happy dogs that bark
At squirrels. A digital billboard advertised girls.
In Lonely Town people pass each other by. We once met at The Danube,
A jazz bar with a neon blue note above the door
That flickered on this September night.
I ordered a Campari and soda, tall,
And scanned the room for a glimpse of you.
I switched to several martinis, up and extra dry.
Cigarette smoke was thick with an indigo hue.
The band was playing a sentimental tune.
I showed the bartender the photo of you
He smiled and politely said,
“Yes, as I recall, she drank a Campari and soda, tall.
You are a ghost, my friend, a Deja vu.
You fell out of love here on a bitter night in September.
Don’t you remember?
She left Lonely Town long ago,
Long ago she left your bed.
Long ago, this very night, you leaped from atop the Hotel Lark.
You, sir, are dead.”
I left Lonely Town
with a photograph in my hand.
I was looking for you.
Long ago you left my bed.
We
We are here,
with our grease paint smiles,
The Back stage crew, the working class,
A cast of harrowed clowns in every city and town,
The underclass, the impoverished caste,
Alone in character, in costume, queued on invisible streets,
Seeking a helping hand, not a handout,
No applause, but gauze for a wounded soul.
We are here,
Reaching out from the padded pews of despair,
Panned by the rapacious church,
Abandoned in the lurch,
While offering our supplications in prayer,
We try to sell our cross for fish and bread,
But are offered vague promises instead,
Promises of damnation if we are not prepared,
Promises of paradise if we are good, and dead.
We are here,
The crippled, the broken, the blind, the lame,
The homeless, the impoverished, the hungry,
The lonely, the empty, the lost, the maimed,
The bewildered, the weakened, the forgotten,
The innocent imprisoned, the disclaimed,
The wilted, the hooked, the wounded, the shamed,
We are in every room, in every corridor,
We are the ubiquity at your door.
We are here,
The essential ones,
The ones that carry the load, that move the freight,
That stock your pantry, the ones that you dare not see,
The ones that you will not touch,
We are your grinders, your subjects, your slaves,
We are your crutch, the foundation of your hate,
The cornerstone of your mighty castles in the clouds,
It is we who shall inherit the jeweled crown,
It is you who will wear the abominable shroud.
If I could sail away,
I would.
I would navigate the vast horizon
Of the sea,
Free from the rapacious captains
Of society.
Free from unfounded judgments
Of the caste.
I would rather cling to the mast
In a storm,
Than grasp the hand of a lubber
Forever lost in the swarm.
If I could sail away,
I would.
I would follow the stars
Above the following sea.
Away from the shores of anxiety.
Away from city sailors
selling ships in jars,
Into an ocean of tranquility.
If I could sail away,
I would.
A giggle and a nickel.
A feather and a tickle.
One dance with Sally
And I’m in quite a pickle.
I never saw it coming,
Or I’d have started running.
One dance with sally
And my heart will not stop drumming.
Now I’m in such a pickle.
Dilly, Gherkin, Kosher, Bread and Butter.
One dance with Sally
My heart is all a flutter.
I shall never, ever dance with another.
Bonk!
There I go,
Stubbing my toe on reality again.
Ouch!
One would think I’d learn.
Another wrong turn and it’s there again.
Who keeps moving things around?
Realities that once were there,
I know not where, now, to expect them.
Bonk!
Here I am,
Bumping my head on the clouds again.
They keep floating by, and I don’t know why.
Guess I should pay more attention
To the path ahead.
Reality, just around the bend.
Well, that’s what the sign said.
Bonk!
Onward through the fog I go again.
On I go into nowhere.
I have nowhere to go.
Nowhere to sculpt the vast unknown.
Nowhere to cement a corner stone.
Nowhere to lay me down to sleep.
Nowhere in which my soul to keep
Nowhere into a future long ago.
Nowhere, where my Lord is all I know.
Nowhere, ever onward, I do go.
“You must be mad, out of your mind.”
He said to the man in the mirror.
An empty echo ricocheted back
From the reflection that can not hear
The silence of no one there.
She sat in the seat next to me.
We both had a ticket to ride.
She was in route to the end of the line.
My destination was a bit more resigned.
We intersected at the junction of Destiny.
“You’re in it up to your neck,” declared the lady of Quagmire Lake.
Yes… it may be my demise. If the water gets any higher, that damn dam might break.
“Try not to worry,” she spoke, “There is always hope.”
Hope won’t help much now… what I need now is a boat.
Blabberjam 